US Catholic Bishops are Wrong About Religious Liberty

I just finished this MUST READ blog post from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  It seems the US Catholic Bishops have decided to do a "full court press" to compel people to follow their religious doctrine.

According to Americans United: "The bishops’ religious liberty is not threatened in the United States, and what they don’t seem to understand is that they aren’t really fighting for freedom of conscience – they’re fighting for the idea that religious “corporate conscience” is more important than individual rights.

"The rights of the people in charge shouldn’t trump the rights of the people they’re in charge of, no matter what the bishops say. In this case, the bishops don’t share the same perspective as most of the people they’re in charge of. How long will it be before they’re no longer speaking for anyone?"

As someone who DOES believe in religious liberty it's imperative that I speak out.  I'm urging all my fellow bloggers to link to the AU blog post, and encourage all who read this to speak out!

Happy Women's Equality Day

90 years, and counting!

View From Under the Bus

Excellent discussion at Netroots Nation on reproductive justice.

In Memoriam – Dr. Dorothy Height

We have lost a legendary figure in the civil rights movement with the passing of Dr. Dorothy Height. For more than six decades Dr. Height was at the center of the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Dr. Height, and to hear her speak.

Dorothy I. Height, 98, a founding matriarch of the American civil rights movement whose crusade for racial justice and gender equality spanned more than six decades, died early Tuesday morning of natural causes, a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women said.

Ms. Height was among the coalition of African American leaders who pushed civil rights to the center of the American political stage after World War II, and she was a key figure in the struggles for school desegregation, voting rights, employment opportunities and public accommodations in the 1950s and 1960s. [...]

Ms. Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years, relinquishing the title in 1997. The 4 million-member advocacy group consists of 34 national and 250 community-based organizations. It was founded in 1935 by educator Mary McLeod Bethune, who was one of Ms. Height's mentors.

As a civil rights activist, Ms. Height participated in protests in Harlem during the 1930s. In the 1940s, she lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of civil rights causes. And in the 1950s, she prodded President Dwight D. Eisenhower to move more aggressively on school desegregation issues. In 1994, Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

In a statement issued by the White House, President Obama called Height "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to so many Americans."

"Dr. Height devoted her life to those struggling for equality . . . witnessing every march and milestone along the way," Obama said. "And even in the final weeks of her life -- a time when anyone else would have enjoyed their well-earned rest -- Dr. Height continued her fight to make our nation a more open and inclusive place for people of every race, gender, background and faith."

In the turmoil of the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, Ms. Height helped orchestrate strategy with movement leaders including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, James Farmer, Bayard Rustin and John Lewis, who later served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia.

Ms. Height was arguably the most influential woman at the top levels of civil rights leadership, but she never drew the major media attention that conferred celebrity and instant recognition on some of the other civil rights leaders of her time.

In August 1963, Ms. Height was on the platform with King when he delivered his "I have a dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. But she would say later that she was disappointed that no one advocating women's rights spoke that day at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Less than a month later, at King's request, she went to Birmingham, Ala., to minister to the families of four black girls who had died in a church bombing linked to the racial strife that had engulfed the city.

"At every major effort for social progressive change, Dorothy Height has been there," Lewis said in 1997 when Ms. Height announced her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women.

Dr. Height was a champion for women's rights before the second wave of the women's rights movement began in the U.S.

She was . . . energetic in her efforts to overcome gender bias, and much of that work predated the women's rights movement. When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, Ms. Height was among those invited to the White House to witness the ceremony. She returned to the White House in 1998 for a ceremony marking the 35th anniversary of that legislation to hear Clinton urge passage of additional laws aimed at equalizing pay for men and women.

"Dorothy Height deserves credit for helping black women understand that you had to be feminist at the same time you were African . . . that you had to play more than one role in the empowerment of black people," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) once said.

Thank you Dr. Height for the inspirational leadership you provided us.

A Woman's Nation

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Takes a long time to load, but is worth a listen.

NOW Stands with Dr. Carhart in Nebraska

If you live in, or near, Omaha, Nebraska, you might want to head over to Dr. LeRoy Carhart's clinic today or tomorrow and lend support. NOW President Terry O'Neill is in Nebraska today to send a strong message to the anti-abortion crazies that "The clinics will stay open!"

In the wake of Dr. George Tiller's assassination, Dr. Carhart has announced that he will step up his provision of late term abortion serviced for women in Nebraska and Kansas. In response, Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue, has vowed to close Carhart's clinic the same way his group closed Dr. Tiller's!

If the Department of Homeland Security isn't all over this guy for his direct threat to Carhart, then there is something wrong with our protection from known "terrorists."

Here is the full statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill:

NOW Stands with Dr. Carhart in Nebraska,
Calls for Protection for Clinics Across U.S.

I am proud to stand here today with the heroic Dr. LeRoy Carhart and his brave staff at the Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska, as well as the other fine feminist leaders who join me in saying: This clinic will stay open!

Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller on May 31, anti-abortion forces have set their sights on Dr. Carhart. Operation Rescue and other opponents of women's reproductive autonomy are descending on this clinic in an attempt to terrorize the workers and their patients, with the ultimate goal of closing down the facility. Because NOW believes that it is every woman's right to have access to the full range of reproductive health care, we are committed to helping defend these courageous providers.

Clinic violence and harassment are domestic terrorism, plain and simple. The hateful rhetoric and attacks have grown bolder this year. As we stand in peaceful support of women's rights in Nebraska, we know that every clinic in the United States is a potential target. I call on the Obama administration to respond to this threat using the strongest means possible, to prosecute the criminals, their funders and their co-conspirators, and to protect every provider, worker and patient across this nation.

Women are counting on us. They must not be denied access to safe, legal abortion — not by harassment or intimidation, not by bullets or bombs. Say it with me: The clinics will stay open!

UPDATE:
Nebraska Attorney General Lambasts Carhart, Supports Aim of Extremist Anti-choicers
This is truly unacceptable behavior by a government official.

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Women's Equality Day - August 26

It's been an emotional day beginning with the news of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death. I was watching the news as I was getting ready to attend a funeral for the mother of a close friend.

My friend's mother died a few days ago, and the kicker to this is that her father had died the week before. Her father was 95 and mother 86, so they had lived a full life, but it's still tough to let go.

As I approached my friend a noted that her mother was being buried on Women's Equality Day. My friend's mother was born about two years after women were granted the right to vote. As I sat in the pew at the church waiting for the funeral to begin I thought about my own mother, who was two years old when the amendment became law.

Before the day gets away from me I want to get something up about this history event -- so I've decided to "borrow" a post from Tennessee Guerilla Women:

Women’s Equality Day

Thanks to Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) and the women known as second-wave feminists, today is Women's Equality Day. In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day.

Joint Resolution of Congress, 1971
Designating August 26 of each year as Women’s Equality Day

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.

How Concerned Are You?

A recent Gallup Poll indicates that more people call themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice." Should abortion rights activists be concerned?

A Gallup Poll released Friday found that 51 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice on the issue of abortion, the first time a majority gave that answer in the 15 years that Gallup has asked the question.

The findings, obtained in an annual survey on values and beliefs conducted May 7-10, marked a significant shift from a year ago. A year ago, 50 percent said they were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life _ in the new poll, 42 percent said they were pro-choice.

The new survey showed that Americans remained deeply divided on the legality of abortion _ with 23 percent saying it should be illegal in all circumstances, 22 percent saying it should be legal under any circumstances, and 53 percent saying it should be legal only under certain circumstances.

The findings echoed a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center, which reported a sharp decline since last August in those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases _ from 54 percent to 46 percent.

Taken together, the two polls have elated anti-abortion activists, who had been stung by the November election results that placed President Barack Obama and other abortion-rights supporters in power in Washington.

Do we really want to return to a time when abortion was illegal? Do we want women dying from botched back-alley abortions? We know that women facing and unplanned, unwanted pregnancy will seek an abortion.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards questioned the terminology in the Gallup questions, and had this to say:

"The terms pro-choice and pro-life no longer define the parameters of the debate, witnessed by the fact that in the Gallup Poll, a majority of people say they are both pro-life and that abortion should be legal," Richards said.

She added that most Americans share Obama's stated goal of reducing the number of unintended pregnancies.

Planned Parenthood also noted that another recent national survey, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp., poll in April, reported 49 percent of respondents identifying as pro-choice and 45 percent as pro-life.

And what does this say about the women's movement?

In the new poll, men identify as pro-life, 54 percent to 39 percent, while women also tilt pro-life 49 percent to 44 percent. A year ago, Gallup found more women calling themselves pro-choice than pro-life, by 50 percent to 43 percent, while men were more closely divided: 49 percent pro-choice, 46 percent pro-life.

Are we doing enough to educate young women about what it was like BEFORE Roe v. Wade?

You will find the polling data here. Take a look and let me know what you think.

SCOTUS Nominee Poetic Justice?

Or Clarence Thomas's Worst Nightmare

For those of us who lived through the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, Nell Scovell has a terrific idea!

Minutes after NPR reported that Justice David Souter plans to step down from the Supreme Court, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof updated his Facebook status to ponder a replacement: “I think Obama just might appoint Elena Kagan, his new solicitor-general and the former Harvard Law School dean. She’s young, smart, understands politics as well as law. Who would you like to see him appoint?”

Thanks for asking, Nick. I’d like to see President Obama appoint Brandeis University law professor Anita Hill. She’s reasonably young, smart, and—after her ordeal testifying at Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing—she certainly understands politics as well as law.

Now that's the truth!

My first day on staff at the NOW action center we headed out for a Stop Souter rally at the Capitol. Thank goodness we were so wrong.

One of the saddest, and most frustrating, days for me during my time with NOW was the day Clarence Thomas was confirmed by the Senate. I kept asking myself how could Senator Biden have let the hearings get so out of control in regard to the testimony of Anita Hill? And how could Senator Arlen Specter have been such a jerk in his line of questions to her?

We fast forward to find Biden as Senate President and Specter as the new-Dem-on-the-block. As the Church Lady might say: "How convenient."

So what do YOU think about having a "Justice" Anita Hill?

In Memoriam - Marilyn French

Famed feminist writer Marilyn French has died. I had an opportunity to hear her speak many years ago, while I was still living in Florida. She was promoting her book "Beyond Power" and I was simply amazed at the depth of research she had done to complete it. She spoke for more than an hour and her audience was simply mesmerized.

Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, “The Women’s Room,” propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was heart failure, said her son, Robert.

With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. “My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world,” she once declared.

Her first and best-known novel, “The Women’s Room,” released in 1977, traces a submissive housewife’s journey of self-discovery following her divorce in the 1950s, describing the lives of Mira Ward and her friends in graduate school at Harvard as they grow into independent women. The book was partly informed by her own experience of leaving an unhappy marriage and helping her daughter deal with the aftermath of being raped. Women all over the world seized on the book, which sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 20 languages.

Gloria Steinem, a close friend, compared the impact of the book on the discussion surrounding women’s rights to the one that Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” had had on racial equality 25 years earlier.

“It was about the lives of women who were supposed to live the lives of their husbands, supposed to marry an identity rather than become one themselves, to live secondary lives,” Ms. Steinem said in an interview Sunday. “It expressed the experience of a huge number of women and let them know that they were not alone and not crazy.” [...]

In 1992 Ms. French, a longtime smoker, was given a diagnosis of esophageal cancer and told she had just months to live. She chronicled her winning battle against the disease, which included a 10-day coma, in “Season in Hell: A Memoir” (1998).

“I cannot say I am happy I was sick,” she wrote. “But I am happy that sickness, if it had to happen, brought me to where I am now. It is a better place than I have been before.”

Nevertheless, the disease and its treatment took such a sharp physical toll that, friends said, for a while afterward she questioned whether she should have survived. “She was in pain for 15 years but she was extremely brave,” said Carol Jenkins, a friend who runs the Women’s Media Center, an advocacy group in New York. “She fought through it, she wrote through it and carried on her life. The printed word was a source of life for her.”

In the years since her supposed death sentence, Ms. French continued to publish prolifically; she has a novel scheduled for release this fall and was working on a memoir at the time of her death. Her most significant work since her illness was the four-volume “From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women,” published by Feminist Press and built around the premise that prevailing histories had denied women their past, present and future.

Despite carefully chronicling a long history of oppression, the last volume ends on an optimistic note, said Florence Howe, who recently retired as director of the publishing house. “For the first time women have history,” she said of Ms. French’s work. “The world changed and she helped change it.”

The world has changed,but we still have a long way to go to achieve equality. The 2008 presidential race illustrated that!

May you rest in peace Marilyn French. The challenge is now ours to "change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world."

The Great License Plate Debate

The last time the Supremes debated license plates it was to decide if New Hampshire could force George Maynard to drive around with plates containing the state's "Live Free or Die" motto.

Usually when we think of courts and license plates it's about the Court deciding whether someone will have to MAKE license plates, so I guess this was a good thing ... or was it?

Proponents of "Choose Life" license plates, often accused of making everything a 'federal case', are taking their case to the Supreme Court.

No one is forced to use the plates, which are available in 19 states and seem intended to appeal to those who oppose abortion rights. They are so-called specialty plates, which are available for an extra fee to people who want to express themselves through their license plates.

Florida started the trend in 1987, when it sold a specialty plate to honor the astronauts who had died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster the year before. It raised millions of dollars for a memorial, and these days the Web site of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles offers many other options, including license plates celebrating Nascar, various sports (“Play Tennis!”) and parents who “make a difference.”

It also sells, for $20 extra, a bright yellow plate with the cartoonish faces of two smiling children and the words “Choose Life.” The state says it raised more than $33 million from specialty plates in the 2007 fiscal year and turned most of the money over to private groups.

The “Choose Life” plate generated about $800,000 that year. A state law requires that the money raised from those plates, after administrative expenses are deducted, be given to adoption agencies. The law forbids sharing the money with groups offering “counseling for or referrals to abortion clinics.”

Now this is where I have a problem with these plates. If a state wants to offer speciality plates as a way to increase revenue, then so be it. I'm not crazy about it, but I could maybe live with it if the money were being used to pay for school books or computers, feed or shelter the homeless, or for the general well being of a community -- you know, for things like roads and stuff.

But I draw the line at making a state agency -- in this case the Department of Motor Vehicles -- merely a funding stream for causes I don't necessarily agree with. I think domestic terrorist groups like the "right to life" organizations proposing these plates need to find some other way to fund their fake agencies/clinics -- or close their doors.

It has been a long trip from “Live Free or Die” to “Choose Life.” The old case involved the question of what the government may force people to say. The new one asks what it must allow people to say.

I think it's more than just about what people are allowed to say. I think it's also about using the government as a funding vehicle (all puns intended) for organizations that would like nothing more than to drive some women over a cliff.

Roe v Wade: Celebrating 36 Years of Justice

On a cold winter day in January 1973, the US Supreme Court ruled that women were fully capable of making decisions regarding abortion for themselves. Kudos go out to Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored this important decision. Looking at today's Court, one has to wonder whether women would get the same outcome.

The decision sparked a firestorm of protest that continues today, and over the years we have seen an erosion of our reproductive rights.

With a new administration and Congress, we now have a chance to fight back! This is not the time to breath a sigh of relief, sit back and relax -- now is the time to push forward. To reclaim rights that have been lost, to secure reproductive justice for all women.

There are a number of advocacy groups working on this issue -- Planned Parenthood, NOW, Feminist Majority, National Abortion Federation, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. And political organizations like EMILY's List.

I urge you to find the one that you like best and JOIN! Get on their action alert list, send those emails and make those calls! Now IS the time for action.

Yahoo Names Carol Bartz New CEO

Yahoo ... happy days may be here again for the struggling internet company. The Associated Press reports:

Yahoo Inc. named technology veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive Tuesday, bringing in a no-nonsense leader known for developing a clear focus _ something that has eluded the struggling Internet company during a three-year slump.

The decision to lure Bartz, 60, away from software maker Autodesk Inc. ends Yahoo's two-month search to replace co-founder Jerry Yang, who surrendered the CEO reins after potentially lucrative deals with rivals Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. both collapsed.

Bartz's appointment could set the stage for Microsoft to renew its efforts to buy Yahoo's Internet search operations as a way of mounting a more serious threat to Google, the market leader. Microsoft had been reluctant to deal with Yang because he rebuffed several previous overtures, including a $47.5 billion offer to buy Yahoo in its entirety last May.

Microsoft subsequently withdrew that bid, valued at $33 per share, and now Yahoo's stock price hovers around $12. Yang had hoped to placate shareholders by using Google's superior technology to sell some of the ads alongside Yahoo's search results, but that idea unraveled in November after federal antitrust regulators threatened to block the deal.

Bartz "is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the board was looking for," said Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock.

There is one person who is not real happy with the decision to bring in Bartz.

Yahoo's decision to bring in an outsider apparently irked its president, Susan Decker, who also was a candidate for the CEO job. She now plans to resign after a transitional period. Both Decker and Bartz are on Intel Corp.'s board of directors.

What struck me about this story is that the person who might have assumed they would be considered for the CEO position was Yahoo president Susan Decker. It's not often that one woman replaces another in the running for a top stop in corporate America. Maybe things are looking up for women. Both women are on Intel Corp.'s board of directors.

Bartz's track record indicates she will move quickly to build upon Yahoo's strengths while doing her best to shed the weaknesses.

"She is able to see the essence of things because she doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about how people are going to feel," said Nilofer Merchant, a former Autodesk manager who is now CEO of technology consultant Rubicon. "She is driven by doing the best thing for the business."

Forrester Research analyst David Card said Yahoo desperately needs someone to crack the whip after years of drifting aimlessly despite having a vast online audience, which it touts as 500 million people worldwide. [...]

While Bartz was CEO, Autodesk's annual revenue ballooned from nearly $300 million to $1.5 billion. Perhaps more importantly to Yahoo's long-suffering shareholders, Autodesk's stock price rose by an annual average of nearly 20 percent during Bartz's reign, beating the 10.6 percent annual average for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Seems impressive to me, but everyone has their critics.

Despite Bartz's resume, she will likely face questions about whether she is a good fit at Yahoo because she lacks any background in advertising _ the primary source of Yahoo's income.

Yahoo also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7 billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk's work force.

As one of the first women to run a technology company, Bartz is used to being underestimated. Even after she had been Autodesk's CEO for years, some of her male counterparts occasionally mistook her for an administrative assistant while she was attending industry conferences.

Now what was I just saying about things getting better for women?

Paycheck Fairness Act, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act First Bills to Pass House

The 111th Congress is getting off to a great start. The Feminist Majority reports:

In an outstanding victory for women's rights, the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act were the first bills to pass the House in the new legislative session. The Paycheck Fairness Act passed with a 256-163 vote and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed with a 247-171 vote.

The Paycheck Fairness Act passed the House in the last Congress, but was never sent to the Senate floor. It will deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act and by barring retaliation against workers who disclose their wages.

This Ledbetter Act passed the House in the previous Congress, but Republicans filibustered the bill and prevented a vote in the Senate. It corrects the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Co., Inc. Supreme Court decision (see PDF) that gutted the ability of women workers to sue for wage discrimination.

Ledbetter worked for Goodyear for 19 years before discovering that she was paid significantly less than her male counterparts with the same or less experience. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the complaint had to be filed within 180 days of the initial salary decision even if the victim is unaware of the discrimination until much later.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that "equal pay is an issue of fundamental fairness...but as families grapple with difficult economic times, equal pay for equal work is often about daily survival for millions of families," according to the Associated Press.

Contact your Senators and urge them to pass these important bills!

SisterSong: Party Like It's 1863

I'm in Atlanta at the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Rights membership meeting. How exciting it is spending the weekend with 350 wonderful women of color -- the energy here is palpable. The SisterSong Obama Celebration is scheduled for tonight, but it's actually been going on all day!

Loretta Ross, the national director, opened the day with a stirring presentation, followed by an excellent election update from Dazon Diallo Dixon. These are two of my favorite women. It would be hard not to like their energy and their passion for justice. Dazon told the audience that tonight they would "party like it was 1863." (When the Emancipation Proclamation became law.)

The opening plenary focused on healthcare as a human right. Probably the most poignant presentation was delivered by Imani Walker, from The Rebecca Project, who talked about the challenges women who for a myriad of reasons find themselves "self medicating" -- and in her case pregnant. Giving birth in prison is difficult enough, but going through labor and giving birth while in shackles is inhuman. Walker shared her personal story with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), and together they are working to change the laws at both a federal and state level.

I know money is tight for a lot of us right now, but if you have a few extra dollars be sure to send them SisterSong's way!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

THE GOOD NEWS:

It's good news for reproductive rights advocates as ballot measures in California, Colorado, and South Dakota were defeated. With 98% of the vote counted California voters defeated Prop 2, a teen endangerment measure, by 52% to 48%. Colorado voters rejected by a margin of nearly three to one an amendment to the state Constitution that would have defined human life as beginning at the moment of fertilization. And South Dakota defeated an initiative that would ban abortion in most cases. Two years ago South Dakotans rejected a similar measure and they did so again on Tuesday, with 55 percent of the voters opposing the provision.



THE BAD NEWS:

Voters in California, Florida and Arizona all passed measures which would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In California it cast into limbo some 18,000 same-sex marriages performed since June, when a state Supreme Court decision opened the way to such unions. Attorney General Jerry Brown has said the marriages will stand, but legal experts predict court challenges. The Florida ballot initiative was simply mean-spirited, as same-sex unions were already illegal in the state. This new measure threatens ALL domestic partner unions -- even those of heterosexual couples. Arizona, who rejected a similar measure in 2006, passed a ban on same sex marriage. In all, it was a very bad day for equality.



THE UGLY:

All of these mean-spirited ballot measures point to a new reality -- that religious right extremists who are now feeling the sting of defeat nationally will concentrate more of there efforts in the states. We MUST remain vigilant to counter what is surely to come.

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Blocking Care for Women

By Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic senator from New York, and Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

LAST month, the Bush administration launched the latest salvo in its eight-year campaign to undermine women's rights and women's health by placing ideology ahead of science: a proposed rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would govern family planning. It would require that any health care entity that receives federal financing — whether it's a physician in private practice, a hospital or a state government — certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.

Laws that have been on the books for some 30 years already allow doctors to refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further, ensuring that all employees and volunteers for health care entities can refuse to aid in providing any treatment they object to, which could include not only abortion and sterilization but also contraception.

Health and Human Services estimates that the rule, which would affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, clinics and other health care providers, would cost $44.5 million a year to administer. Astonishingly, the department does not even address the real cost to patients who might be refused access to these critical services. Women patients, who look to their health care providers as an unbiased source of medical information, might not even know they were being deprived of advice about their options or denied access to care.

The definition of abortion in the proposed rule is left open to interpretation. An earlier draft included a medically inaccurate definition that included commonly prescribed forms of contraception like birth control pills, IUD's and emergency contraception. That language has been removed, but because the current version includes no definition at all, individual health care providers could decide on their own that birth control is the same as abortion.

The rule would also allow providers to refuse to participate in unspecified "other medical procedures" that contradict their religious beliefs or moral convictions. This, too, could be interpreted as a free pass to deny access to contraception.

Many circumstances unrelated to reproductive health could also fall under the umbrella of "other medical procedures." Could physicians object to helping patients whose sexual orientation they find objectionable? Could a receptionist refuse to book an appointment for an H.I.V. test? What about an emergency room doctor who wishes to deny emergency contraception to a rape victim? Or a pharmacist who prefers not to refill a birth control prescription?

The Bush administration argues that the rule is designed to protect a provider's conscience. But where are the protections for patients?

The 30-day comment period on the proposed rule runs until Sept. 25. Everyone who believes that women should have full access to medical care should make their voices heard. Basic, quality care for millions of women is at stake.

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TAKE ACTION

Those who are anti-choice, anti-family planning see the period of transition between administrations as a window of opportunity. In its final months, they're pressing the Bush administration to do one ridiculous thing after another. We need Planned Parenthood to make sure that common sense wins out over ideology. And Planned Parenthood needs your help, right now. Act now, and share this message with others.

Women's Rights Groups Endorse Obama

It's official! The leading women's rights organizations are lining up behind Sen. Barack Obama. The Washington Post reports:

Women's rights groups endorsed Barack Obama for president Tuesday, asserting the historic selection of a female Republican vice presidential candidate does not make up for John McCain's lack of support on issues important to women.

"We don't think it's much to break a glass ceiling for one woman and leave millions of women behind," said Eleanor Smeal, chairman (sic) of the Feminist Majority Political Action Committee.

Smeal was among leaders from six organizations that announced their endorsement of the Democratic presidential nominee at a news conference. [...]

Obama also won the support of the National Organization for Women, which said it has not endorsed a candidate for president since Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro shared the Democratic ticket in 1984. Ferraro was the first female major-party vice presidential candidate.

NOW backed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries. "We join with her in saying 'no,'" said NOW President Kim Gandy, referring to a line Clinton used at the Democratic convention last month. "No way, no how, no McCain."

Gandy and Smeal dismissed polls that suggested McCain has received a boost in support from white women after he picked Palin.

"The die is not cast yet," Smeal said.

Recent polling data has Obama barely ahead of McCain, 47% to 46% -- a statistical dead heat.

An Associated Press-GfK Poll of likely voters last week showed Obama's lead among women at 49 percent to 44 percent. The same AP-GfK poll showed that white women are backing McCain over Obama, 53 percent to 40 percent.

Along with NOW and the Feminist Majority, Obama was also endorsed by leaders from Business and Professional Women/USA, the National Association of Social Workers, the National Congress of Black Women and the Women's Information Network.

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Statement of Sen. Barbara Boxer on McCain Acceptance Speech

September 5, 2008

Last night at the Republican National Convention, John McCain used the word "fight" more than 40 times in his speech.

In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.

I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.

I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.

I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.

I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."

And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.

John McCain voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent of the time in 2008 -- that's no maverick.

We do have two real fighters for change in this election -- their names are Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Go Sen. Boxer!

Happy Women's Equality Day

On August 26, 1920 the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution was signed, finally giving women the right to vote! The amendment was first introduced in 1878. In 1971, Congresswoman Bella Abzug introduced legislation celebrating this day.

How fitting that as we celebrate 88 years of women having the vote, the woman who has come closest to leading this nation will take the stage tonight at the Democratic National Convention. I'm proud of the accomplishments of Sen. Hillary Clinton, and look forward to hearing what she has to say.